Sedia gestatoria

Two large fans (flabella) made of white ostrich feathers—a relic of the ancient liturgical use of the flabellum, mentioned in the Constitutiones Apostolicae[2]—were carried at either side of the sedia gestatoria.

In the first case, three bundles of tow were burnt before the newly elected pontiff, who sits on the sedia gestatoria, while a master of ceremonies says: "Pater Sancte, sic transit gloria mundi" (Holy Father, so passes the glory of the world).

[3] Magnus Felix Ennodius, Bishop of Pavia, records in his "Apologia pro Synodo", Gestatoriam sellam apostolicae confessionis, alluding to the Cathedra S. Petri, still preserved in the choir of St. Peter's at Rome.

[3] Besides the use of the sedia gestatoria at the coronation of the pope (which seems to date from the beginning of the sixteenth century) it served in the past on different other occasions, for instance when the pope received the yearly tribute of the Kingdom of Naples and of the other fiefs, and also, at least since the fifteenth century, when he carried the Blessed Sacrament publicly, in which case the sedia gestatoria took a different form, a table being fixed in front of the throne.

[3] Pope John Paul I initially declined to use the ceremonial throne carried on shoulders, along with several other symbols of papal authority, but was eventually convinced that it was necessary to make him visible to the crowds in Saint Peter's Square.